Will a Governor Win the White House in 2016?

Larry J. Sabato is university professor of politics and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, which publishes the online, free Crystal Ball politics newsletter every Thursday, and a contributing editor at Politico Magazine. His most recent book is The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy.

If you live under a governor, you mainly care about his or her ability to govern. If you don’t, and you’re in the political community, you primarily want to know whether a governor is presidential timber.

Our general preference for governors has emerged over time. In the republic’s first eight decades, the presidency was gained by candidates best known for being generals, vice presidents and secretaries of state. That last category, in particular, stands out as a surprisingly significant presidential feeder: Six of the first 15 presidents had previously served as secretary of state. The last was James Buchanan, whose disastrous tenure led up to the Civil War. No former secretary of state has been elected president since, which gives Hillary Clinton another historical barrier to break if she captures the White House.

Story Continued Below

It wasn’t until 1876 that an incumbent governor became president—Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. Actually, a governor had to win that year because the Democrats nominated Gov. Samuel Tilden of New York.

Gradually, Americans began to associate the executive offices of president and governor, recognizing that the skill set for success was somewhat similar. The era of governor-presidents opened in earnest with Grover Cleveland, then William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt (who had only a few months in the vice presidency after his well-known New York governorship), Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.

In modern times, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush continued the trend. The seven sitting governors elected directly to the White House outnumber the incumbent senators elected to lead the nation—just three, Warren Harding, John Kennedy and Barack Obama. All told, 17 presidents served as governor at some point before their presidency, and 16 served as U.S. senator. (In the past 100 years, the major political parties have also nominated nine losing White House candidates whose most recent office was state governor.)

President Obama’s initial election in 2008 was unusual in that it was the first time since 1972 that neither major-party candidate had served as governor. At least on the surface, then, odds would appear decent that one party in 2016 will nominate a governor.

On the Democratic side, with Clinton standing as the colossus, only two relatively unknown governors appear interested in mounting a challenge: Brian Schweitzer of Montana, who served two terms in Helena from 2005-2013, and Martin O’Malley of Maryland, now finishing his second term. New York’s Andrew Cuomo is on some pundits’ lists, but so far he seems even less inclined toward a bid than his gubernatorial father, Mario, who played Hamlet in 1992 and ultimately did not run. One important difference between Cuomo and O’Malley is that the New York executive does not have a term limit, meaning Cuomo could run for a third term in 2018 (assuming he wins reelection this year, as is expected). Some people run for president because they don’t have anything better to do—O’Malley, forced to leave office at the end of the year, could be one. Cuomo, meanwhile, could bide his time, though his father—after passing on presidential runs—ended up losing a bid for a fourth gubernatorial term, in 1994, to Republican George Pataki.

A few 2016 watchers are touting three-term California Gov. Jerry Brown, but he would be 78 years old in the election year and has so far demurred. The idea seems far-fetched, though Brown has run for president three times before, in 1976, 1980 and 1992, and he is still one of the most unpredictable figures on the political scene. Maybe he will be the ultimate test of the adage that only death is a cure for presidential fever.

To this point, the governor who has received the lion’s share of attention in the presidential sweepstakes is of course New Jersey Republican Chris Christie, who presumably is still planning to run if he can withstand the bridge scandal—a big if. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is pining for another candidacy, perhaps having remembered the third thing he wanted to tell us in that famous 2012 debate. Other Republican governors might also be tempted by the wide-open GOP field, including Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Bill Haslam of Tennessee and John Kasich of Ohio. Jindal is term-limited and out of office in 2015. Walker, Haslam and Kasich have to get reelected in 2014, and all are favored in varying degrees to do so.